Found at a Nottinghamshire garden centre in late August 2024, this
unidentified Tapinoma species is present in large numbers,
based in a newly renovated greenhouse. These ants were originally
thought to be based in a newly renovated greenhouse, but recent work in
early 2025 suggests that the colony, or likely multiple budded colonies,
are located within an old outer brick wall, several metres high.
It was the sheer number of ants in these well-formed columns which
prompted my suspisions that this was something more interesting than
Lasius niger. Behavioural differences led to me taking
numerous specimens, which have been sent off to for identification and
the results of which are still being waited on. There are no Tapinoma ants native to Nottinghamshire, so this is certainly an
imported species and potentially invasive, but which must have arrived here
via plant transportation, and according to staff at the garden centre,
has been present for many years. |
